Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Electrocaloric effect materials are materials that can experience a temperature change when subjected to an applied electric field. This temperature change can be reversed upon the removal of the applied electric field. By physically coupling and decoupling electrocaloric effect material to and from a heat source, thermal energy can be dynamically transferred in quantities that are greater in one direction than the other. The described principles may be applied to a heat transfer device that can be utilized to transfer thermal energy away from a heat source.
The present disclosure appreciates that the electrocaloric effect and other materials used in various types of heat transfer devices may experience dimensional changes with the application and removal of the applied electric field. As a result, the volume of the electrocaloric effect material layers may undesirably change in the longitudinal direction of the thermal energy flow during operation of the heat transfer device, creating a cumulative strain that may result in undesirable bending, which may decouple the material from the heat source, decouple the material from the heat dump, or may result in some other mechanical problem or failure. Moreover, because of the lateral dimensional change of the electrocaloric effect material layers in a heat transfer device, these layers may experience a delamination stress that is cyclical with the application and removal of the applied electric field. The cyclic delamination stress may result in delamination with adjacent material layers, potentially leading to reliability issues.